iCame, iSaw, iConquered and iTraveled

First step towards becoming a Digital Nomad

Ok, well here I am sitting in the garage of my wife’s aunt blogging about how I am off to travel the world, write about it, and build my online business to become something more than just a hobby. This is my first phase of becoming a digital nomad. My wife has sold nearly everything we own minus my T.V and the bed but they will go soon. We haven’t sold our truck yet either which is stress inducing. Money is the root of all evil but it is needed when you want to leave your home and travel. I am learning what the phrase “necessary evil” means, because when most people decide to do something like this they save money and a lot of it but me… I like doing things the hard way I think because I got fired six weeks before we had planned to leave. I haven’t gotten any unemployment, not another job, not even part time work. All the money we have is what little savings my wife and I had (which wasn’t the three months of bills that most financial guys say you need to have either) our tax refund (which is small when you don’t have any children and you don’t make six figures) and the money from all of our household goods and Brownie’s clothing. So the truck selling and making a little money on it would ease some of our money worries, so hopefully it will sell soon. It’s not like it’s a piece of junk either. It’s a 2007 Toyota FJ, bright yellow and I love it but apparently not everyone does so it has taken a lot longer than I had hoped. I have been pressuring Brownie about buying the plane tickets even if the truck hasn’t sold yet because it is inevitable that it will sell it’s just a matter of time. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’ll finally buy them tomorrow.

“Buying plane tickets is an art form if you like to be frugal. The fact of the matter is that you have to put in time to find cheap flights, and I don’t mean you have to buy the tickets one or more months in advance, I mean that you have to look at ticket prices from every website you can find every couple of days for months.”

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So now we have all of the boxes filled with our “sentimental” items saved at my daughters house here in San Antonio. I used the word sentimental but what I mean to say is shit. I love my wife but she is attached to a lot more things than just me, she really doesn’t like to be limited clothing selection either which has stressed her out with this move to Europe. This is something I will have to write a post about but more in depth because I am sure there are a lot of people that have this fear as well so we will see how she handles it. She has faced this challenge once before, when we first got married I bought into the silver jewelry business like her father and we traveled for two years living out of our 2002 Nissan Sentra. This will be even harder for her since we are starting out as “helpers” on an amazing site called HelpX (go to this site to understand how we plan to live for the next few months) which means we will be staying in people’s homes and traveling using busses, trains and taxis. Did I mention that my wife is a shop-a-holic? Again, this topic will be a more in depth posting to help people like my wife to see how to live the way you want in every way.

The hardest part about this trip so far has been dealing with my wife’s fear. She has stressed out about money and to be honest with you she has the reason, we don’t really have a lot of money and we are risking everything so maybe I’m the one that is crazy because I am so ready for this that I almost drool. I am so hungry for a life with more meaning. We really wanted to travel but couldn’t afford to live out of hotels or hostels for that matter, so we looked for alternative means. Websites like Work-A-Way and HelpX are exactly that, alternatives. These sites connect people from around the world to help each other and exchange services. For example; “Jean in France just bought an old farm home and they want to convert it to a bed and breakfast style hotel so they post that they need help. These people are called hosts. Other people looking to visit France will see the posting and if they have any of the skills that Jean needs help with they start communicating with Jean and eventually become helpers.” This is our cheap way of traveling in Italy for the next six months. During which time I will work on this blog and hopefully entertaining as many people as I can along the way. My goal is to become financially secure through my gaming network and blogs. I never thought I was a good writer but I have learned that blogging isn’t writing in the literal term. Journalists apparently aren’t fond of bloggers that think they are journalists and visa versa, but what do I know? Up until this point I didn’t have a dog in the hunt.

Today is the 18th of April and I want to buy our plane tickets today for the 1st or 2nd of May, let’s see if that happens. The plan is to meet up with Brownie’s brother who lives in Ireland right now. He wants to meet up with us as soon as we get there because he is moving back to Mexico in July and we haven’t seen him since he moved to Ireland two years ago. Right now I want to meet him in Dublin and then fly to Rome Italy and meet up with our first “host family” which is also our first job. We start our first summer camp job in Italy on the Adriatic coast the third week of May and we’ll be there until the last day of June. Our job at the summer camp is supposed to be teaching Italian children to speak English. Brownie and I are bringing our favorite game, Catch Phrase to play with the children and help make learning English fun during summer so we’re super excited.

So here we go… We’re nervous, excited and even a little scared but fear is a healthy response when you put every dollar your worth at risk. What’s the payoff you may ask, well let’s ask that question again in another six months.

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About Bevo the Blogger

I am an American living abroad, and by abroad I mean pretty much anywhere that isn't the United States. Not because of some political boycott or legal issues but because this planet is very big and there is more to see than what's in my backyard. I am recently relocated from Egypt to Ecuador where I blog and work on a few online projects that I hope to be nearly as successful as every other aspect of my life.